My small missiles does 50% damage to shields, my large missiles do 50% damage to shields, Swarms should do 50% damage to shields.. I can't believe you are buffing this lock and fire skill-less weapon. At least make it so they have to keep the lock on ..

As it turns out, I found a bug that means the Forge Gun and Swarm weren't getting their proficiency skill bonuses against vehicle armour on HAVs and Dropships. I think I'll look at fixing that.

We are talking about vehicle sized targets here.
In the range that the swarm launcher can actually lock on, a forge gun can VERY EASILY hit.

It takes a lot of skill to MISS at that point.

ok then.. if it's that hard to miss make it so you have to keep aim on target..

ok then.. if it's that hard to miss make it so you have to keep aim on target..

Alright, so I'm going to put some of my early thoughts here. None of this is final and is highly dependent on your feedback

* Reduce ADS price to 250,000 ISK

* Swarms to 150m, Assault Swarms to 200m

* Buff base dropship health a little (not ADS)

* Increase swarm reserve ammo
* Reduce physical impulse on Assault Swarms

* Slight increase to physical impulse on Swarms

* Increase Assault Swarm speed, reduce tracking and flight time. Total range will still be slightly higher. Max Rotation rate is currently 90 degrees, will try 60 first.

* Increase Standard Dropship speed (140 -> 160)

* Increase missiles to 6/7/8, reduce damage to compensate (165) to close gap between standard, advanced and prototype.

* Reduce Assault Swarm damage (looking at 10% initially)

Vehicle Armour Repairers need a big hit with a nerf bat, so I'll also look at those. However they are a much wider issue, so that might take some more time.

Lastly to fully cross into mad science territory, what would you think of a swarm variant that does half the damage but applies a very strong slowing effect to it's target?

Also, while an incubus can take unlimited volleys of militia swarms and not budge, the python has to run away with max two swarms. I would also like to say the shield collision damage is through the roof. Landing takes away 400 shield minimum, accidentally bumping a wall just a tad takes off over 1000s of shield and swarms throw pythons around like tennis balls. The heavier incubus is resistant to collision, has more EHP, better repair, doesn't turn upside down due to one volley of swarm. Obviously Incubus is the best ADS just like Madrugar is the best tank.

Assault swarms should be fast, short range missiles. ADS only counter to swarms is to outrun them. That's the thing people don't understand about fire and forget weapons. The less effort needed to use, the less reward. So make assault swarm missiles move as fast as installation missiles, but they only fly up to 300m. This can be said to be because they have been modified to burn the fuel faster, giving increased speed but drastically lower flight time, on account of running out of fuel far faster.

This is balanced, because an ADS can stil use speed to escape these swarms. But rather than escaping the swarms by moving faster than them, he escapes by outranging them faster. Meaning an assault swarm can apply its DPS easier than now, at the cost of being outranged far quicker. There should be a tradeoff over the normal swarm launcher for using the assault, and missile max range is a good place for it. Especially considering assault generally means higher DPS, less range (with a few aberrant exceptions, like the SMG, which need fixing.)

I'm pretty sure that we can reduce that threshold from 102 to 80-75 or even lower safely (anything that isn't an AV weapon already has a really low multiplier so shouldn't interfere still). There's also a strange thing I've found with the resistances for dropships against swarms (the 55% efficiency people have mentioned), so fixing that might solve a lot of problems.

PG/CPU modifications are something we've considered, but that's a little beyond the scope of Bravo. Chances are we won't touch them this time around and leave them for another hotfix.

Swarm Range is the biggest thing I'll need feedback for, as it's hard to duplicate actual battlefield conditions with less people.

There is no damage nerf, prototype damage is the same and standard and advanced are higher. Swarms have the advantage in that they can lockon to their targets, which gives a much higher amount of accuracy.

We seem to be limiting our thoughts to too small an area. Vehicle balance has a major problem. One that might not even be surmountable. The variables we have to tweak are limited. Perhaps too limited to actualy reach a suitable balance without client updates that are not coming.

Perhaps there are other ways to adjust swarms outside of speed, range and damage. I am just throwing stuff out here, these are not well thought out or even practical, there purpose is to inspire lateral thinking (trying to work within the no client update restriction):

1) Special swarms that also do damage to the pilot

2) Missiles that do more damage the slower a dropship is going. Say double damage it it is hovering, half damage when it is at full speed. Then you could remove the afterburner completely

3) Low damage but high impact physics swarms

4) Change the after burner to not change speed but make its heat throw swarms off so they miss (increase cool down too)

5) Link damage to altitude and remove the afterburner. Low altitude = high damage.

6) Remove the afterburner but increase dropship HP

7) increase swarm damage if a dropship has its afterburner active.

Theres are just ideas to get you considering other options.

The idea for example with 2 and 5 is to stop dropships just hanging there raining unfair death. If I do that I take a great risk of getting hit with 440 hp damage swarms. But if I am moving, say flying to drop off troops, like dropships should, then I take far less damage, say 100 per missile. So swarmers can time their attacks for when the dropship reaches it's destination. At the point when we are a threat to the team; rather than just blasting away from long range the whole match.

Both players have to be more strategic. We can remove the afterburner, buff swarm damage. Over to you......

Most definitely, although I have not been using Swarms very much since the week of testing I did after 1.7.

I used to enjoy dueling with LAVs in an open field back in the Murder Taxi days.

(For the record, I only fly pythons. Don't know about incubus. As such, ADS opinion below only applies to pythons.)

You can't simply improve swarm launcher flight speed without reducing tracking ability. Swarm launchers are only deficient in their lower tier damage. They have a flight speed that can only be outrun by using after burners and a tracking ability that makes them virtually impossible to shake. Increasing swarm launcher flight speed to the point that It could outrun a dropship with afterburners active without drastically reducing tracking ability will result in a swarm launcher that is impossible to evade.

If your goal is to create a swarm launcher that can chase dropships away, you already have it. Higher tier swarm launchers deal sufficient damage to force me to run away. Lower tier swarm launchers do a negligible amount of damage were it is easy to track them down and kill them, and it shouldn't be that way. Lower tier swarm launchers need to be a threat to my ADS.

Killing an ADS can be tricky because most pilots will run away when things get to hot because pythons are squishy.

Judge Radamanthus made this video on this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxwLQAFLbJM&list=UUy11xToip47aIW0M9TSOKrQ

I'll only comment on the points that I have issues with - everything else seems reasonable...

Please do NOT nerf standard swarm range - I think it should be buffed to 200m. It still takes close to a second and a half to target-lock and those vehicles are moving. Good luck getting close enough on foot in Commando suit. I still don't understand why it takes the same lock-time for a 50m target as it does for a 150m target. Longer lock times for farther targets solves this issue without nerfing range. A distant moving/flying target has a greater chance of escape; a closer stationary target, less so.

Adding a weaker, 225m-250m Assault variant makes sense as does a stronger, 150m-175m Breach variant (for HAVs?). Not sure about the value of the Specialist model.

I think swarm missiles should be faster than all vehicles without burners, but probably slower than those with. So make whatever corrections needed there.

Increasing missile count while reducing damage per missile seems a reasonable way to flatten the damage curve from std to proto, but the bug that allows ADSs to shield regenerate throughout a missile volley impact because individual missile damage is to low needs to be corrected.

Standard swarm missile smarts need to be improved some to reduce the odds of hitting inanimate things like molehills and building cross-beams - especially if the number of missiles are to be increased. HOWEVER, adding a chance variable that causes random missiles to miss their target a (very) small percentage of the time even if they run into nothing else on route seems fair and would reward pilot skill.

Alright, after having dug a little further I'm likely going to start from scratch with most changes after I figure out what's going on with the resistances to swarms on the ADS.

The Assault name on the Swarms is flexible. Main point is we're taking away the current assault swarms and replacing them with something else (Tactical I'm partial to, Breach I would prefer to leave for a single shot version).

Idea with the new swarms is to make them faster, but also less agile so that a dropship pilot that's on the ball can better manouvre to avoid them. The standard swarms will be shorter range but higher damage, more suited for taking out ground targets. I forgot to mention I'm also looking at lowering the lock on times

There's a few numbers I can play with as far as speed goes such as acceleration (linear only), initial speed and max speed. I'll be doing some testing later this week to get a feel for different variations, but feel free to make suggestions. Other things like making them shoot in a straight line for a longer period of time so you have to actually shoot them where you think the dropship is going is another thought I've had.

Damage for the most part I'll stay away from increasing at Prototype (I'm happy with the numbers from standard and advanced with more missiles) for now again due to the funky resistances. As far as making sure they still interrupt shield regen, I'll have to wait till I've sorted resistances before I tweak that but I'm looking to make sure that they can do so still with one hardener (haven't decided on two yet). I'll also double check impulse to make sure we're not massively increasing it.

Alright, after having dug a little further I'm likely going to start from scratch with most changes after I figure out what's going on with the resistances to swarms on the ADS.

The Assault name on the Swarms is flexible. Main point is we're taking away the current assault swarms and replacing them with something else (Tactical I'm partial to, Breach I would prefer to leave for a single shot version).

Idea with the new swarms is to make them faster, but also less agile so that a dropship pilot that's on the ball can better manouvre to avoid them. The standard swarms will be shorter range but higher damage, more suited for taking out ground targets. I forgot to mention I'm also looking at lowering the lock on times

There's a few numbers I can play with as far as speed goes such as acceleration (linear only), initial speed and max speed. I'll be doing some testing later this week to get a feel for different variations, but feel free to make suggestions. Other things like making them shoot in a straight line for a longer period of time so you have to actually shoot them where you think the dropship is going is another thought I've had.

Damage for the most part I'll stay away from increasing at Prototype (I'm happy with the numbers from standard and advanced with more missiles) for now again due to the funky resistances. As far as making sure they still interrupt shield regen, I'll have to wait till I've sorted resistances before I tweak that but I'm looking to make sure that they can do so still with one hardener (haven't decided on two yet). I'll also double check impulse to make sure we're not massively increasing it.

Alright, after having dug a little further I'm likely going to start from scratch with most changes after I figure out what's going on with the resistances to swarms on the ADS.

The Assault name on the Swarms is flexible. Main point is we're taking away the current assault swarms and replacing them with something else (Tactical I'm partial to, Breach I would prefer to leave for a single shot version).

Idea with the new swarms is to make them faster, but also less agile so that a dropship pilot that's on the ball can better manouvre to avoid them. The standard swarms will be shorter range but higher damage, more suited for taking out ground targets. I forgot to mention I'm also looking at lowering the lock on times

There's a few numbers I can play with as far as speed goes such as acceleration (linear only), initial speed and max speed. I'll be doing some testing later this week to get a feel for different variations, but feel free to make suggestions. Other things like making them shoot in a straight line for a longer period of time so you have to actually shoot them where you think the dropship is going is another thought I've had.

Damage for the most part I'll stay away from increasing at Prototype (I'm happy with the numbers from standard and advanced with more missiles) for now again due to the funky resistances. As far as making sure they still interrupt shield regen, I'll have to wait till I've sorted resistances before I tweak that but I'm looking to make sure that they can do so still with one hardener (haven't decided on two yet). I'll also double check impulse to make sure we're not massively increasing it.

A Militia Gallente Scout suit with Advanced Swarms, AV nades and REs is an interesting dance partner for a LAV... Or a HAV.

There is a difference between lying and being factually wrong, the difference being belief. To go straight to accusations of lying and calling someone a noob is pretty damn offensive. You may be right in me over exaggerating the mechanics. I'm going to have to do some testing. In the mean time, put a muzzle on your anger, relax, have a nice cup of tea. There was nothing in my post that should have warranted that much hate.

I'm not demanding that swarms should have shoddy tracking ability. The current swarms have extremely good tracking ability; being able to do 180 degree turns, following you behind cover, etc. So when I said "drastically reduce their tracking ability", I meant reduce it so that it tracks ok. Although I do understand how that could be misinterpreted and that's my fault for not being clear enough.

I am not proposing that swarm tracking ability be reduced across the board; only those that have their flight speed increased.

I'm glad that you at least agree with the conclusion from my "sham" premise.

That would easily ruin Swarm Launcher vs LAV combat.

I thing dumbfire would be the better idea; It's easily possible server side by taking the Mass Driver, removing the arc, increasing projectile speed, and then putting it under the Swarm Launcher model.

Lastly to fully cross into mad science territory, what would you think of a swarm variant that does half the damage but applies a very strong slowing effect to it's target?

Point: A common complaint is that Dropships boost out of trouble and are hard to kill.
Counterpoint: Dropships have no other viable way of tanking damage, and are very easily killed if not incredibly careful.

We can change the assault swarm launcher to have fast, long range missiles so there is a way to chase dropships away, but pilots have also told us that sometimes infantry isn't rendered properly so they don't even appear to pilots before the missiles are hitting their dropship.

Please discuss, we want both sides to weigh in.